Student Feedback

Princeton University GEO422 : Data, Models and Uncertainty in
the Natural Sciences

These comments have not been edited (not even for spelling, except
where my name was misspelled), although only a selection
appears.

2015

Every paragraph below is an individual student's answer to the
question: "How would you describe the overall quality of the
lectures?".

He is an excellent teacher.

Professor Simons lectures very differently from most
instructors. I was thrown off initially by his humorous comments and
seeming lack of interest in carrying out the derivations, but lo and
behold, there was a method to his madness. I started to appreciate
Professor Simons' lecture style when I started working on the first
set of MATLAB exercises. A fundamental understanding and appreciation
for the applications of the topics from class are stressed rather than
a rigorous line by line understanding of how to get to the results. I
have learned a large amount of information during the course of the
semester and look forward to delving deeper and building upon the
foundation that was laid out during this class.

Good lectures. Professor has an entertaining lecture
style and is thorough with the material but not too thorough as to be
tedious.

Frederik is very smart and has a very specific plan for
how to present each topic

The lectures, in general, were very helpful and presented
in a logical orderly fashion.

Professor Simons is very engaging and hilarious

Lectures explained clearly, lecturer really funny! :)

Frederik is very funny and very smart

I thought they were very engaging and clear. If you don't
like applied math you might find the material difficult to get
through, but Frederik explains things pretty well. Frederik also has a
dry sense of humor which is very entertaining. If you took careful
notes, you could probably get away with not having to consult any
outside sources to do the work.

very intellectually stimulating, went into enlightening
levels of depth without overburdening with mathematical minutiae

Lectures are very interesting and Frederik is awesome. He
is extremely smart and good at making abstract concepts
accessible. While he sometimes gets bogged down in long math, I was
almost always able to follow him through the lecture. The course
material is all extremely interesting and Frederik makes it engaging.

Lectures were clearly very well thought out, with
Frederik's use of colored chalk, board schemes and ordering of
concepts. He made a valiant effort to make the theory understandable

Lectures were fantastic if you were able to understand
every step. Frederik likes to skip steps and you have to be constantly
aware of when he does so you can understand gaps in reasoning on the
blackboard.

Every paragraph below is an individual student's answer to the
question: "Please comment on the overall quality of the course."

The course was taught well with a surprisingly
well-organized emphasis on applications of the material.

If this course helped me with anything, it was to
self-educate on extremely difficult subject matter that I thought to
be previously inaccessible. The nature of the assignments also
tremendously improved my coding abilities as they relate to
algorithms.

I really felt like I finally understood some basic
statistical ideas. I would say it's very useful for any science major

Good course for those looking for experience modeling with
Matlab. Good intro to statistics and signal processing.

The course is an excellent introduction to method of data
analysis and modeling. It is a good way to get some practice with
Matlab (I learned how to use Matlab in the course). I also appreciate
that Frederik gives us some flexibility that allows us to spend needed
time with the material.

I think I have a much better grip on basic statistics
after taking this course. Frederik and Ben make a very good team.

This course was great, I wish there was a second part
offered next semester!

as an upper-level course with grad students, it was good
in catering to a very diverse crowd of people and their experience. It
helped novice MATLAB-ers like me while still challenging some people
conceptually who had been programming for much longer. Concepts were
hard but very explained.

Fun class, learned a ton, wish there was a second part.

2012

Every paragraph below is an individual student's answer to the
question: "How would you describe the overall quality of the
lectures?".

Frederik is an amazing teacher. I like his instructional
method and the lectures. His special way of presenting using
blackboard simulated my engagement and independent thinking.

Professor Simons is an enthusiastic lecturer who was able
to present difficult material in a funny and interested manner. He
kept students engaged in the material by asking questions and
repeating himself whenever necessary.

Professor Simons clearly knew what he was talking about
and was a humorous, energetic instructor although the material was
often very difficult considering the prerequisites for this course.

Great teaching.

Excellent. Frederik would adjust his lectures based on
real-time feedback from the students---if we wanted him to go into
more detail into something, he would. That kind of flexibility is rare
and I greatly appreciated it.

Frederik Simons is very enthusiastic. He loves his
students and is willing to go to great lengths to help them.

Frederik's lectures are exceedingly well organized,
engaging, and informative.

Lectures were great. The material was presented quickly,
but well. The best part was Professor Simons' passion. It was clear he
found the information interesting, which made me interested
too. Frederik was honestly the most engaged lecturer I have ever had!

Lectures were organized, well-explained, and the professor
made every effort to make the subject comprehensible and clear to the students.

Frederik does a terrific job at walking through and
explaining the steps of a derivation and how they are relevant to the
resulting formula. The few times that I didn't understand something
the first time, it only took one more (thorough) explanation for me to
understand, and when Frederik would explain something for one of my
classmates I would also gain a better understanding of the topic. He
has a dry humor that is refreshingly entertaining and appropriate
given the potential dryness of the subject he's teaching.

Prof. Simons was a fantastic lecturer and did a great job
of explaining some pretty complex material.

Every paragraph below is an individual student's answer to the
question: "Please comment on the overall quality of the course."

The course is pretty good. I gained a lot from it.

I really enjoyed this course.

This course provides a very hands-on introduction to
Matlab and Professor Simons is definitely an interesting
lecturer.

Very well-taught.

Possibly one of the best classes I have taken in terms of
how much I learned in one semester.

The class was focused on "doing" more than just
remembering formulas and it definitely achieved its goal. I took 5
classes this semester, this might be the only one which material I
will use soon for my research.

Frederik is the best professor I have ever had.

Course was extremely useful for understanding statistics
and developing the skills to use these statistical tools for any
scientific project.

The course comprehensively covered the statistical
techniques that are most relevant to scientific study, and I feel
extremely well prepared to conduct my own research now and to support
my arguments with a deep statistical summary.

Overall, this is a fantastic course. I learned a great
deal and am much better off for it.

2010

Every paragraph below is an individual student's answer to the
question: "How would you describe the overall quality of the
lectures?".

Frederik is engaging to the students, and has very
well-planned lectures. Lecture attendance key to understanding enough
to complete assignments.

I would rate the quality of the lectures as excellent. The
professor is marked by an entertaining, engaging style. All presented
information was presented in an application-focused context, and no
time was exhausted in the completion or presentation of "busy
work". The classes both stimulated my interest in the subject of data
analysis and contributed significantly to my knowledge of the subject.

Frederik's lectures are performance art.

Frederik is very mathematically precise and clear with his
notation, something for which I will be eternally grateful [...] and
his explanation of fourier time series analysis is the best
explanation I've ever seen anywhere.

Every paragraph below is an individual student's answer to the
question: "Please comment on the guidance of the instructor(s) in
preparing you to do [...] problem
sets to the course."

lab experiments and reports helped our understanding very much.

One homework and 4 labs. All were very useful toward
building on understanding of material, and helped students gain a
working knowledge of MATLAB along the way. Workload not overbearing.

Every assignment was ingeniously developed and melded well
with the information currently being discussed in lectures. Comments
and advice were helpful and informative. The assignments contributed
greatly to a deeper knowledge and appreciation for the subject matter
at hand.

I learned a ton from these well organized and constructed
problem sets. They were challenging, but Prof. Simons was ALWAYS
available to discuss the problem sets.

Frederik did a fantastic job of taking many students who
had never even worked with MATLAB and showing them how to do quite
complicated things with the language. He always had a trick up his
sleeve to help everyone improve and do things naturally, and his
comments were written with care and were very helpful.

Every paragraph below is an individual student's answer to the
question: "Please comment on the overall quality of the course."

Overall, I rate the course as excellent --- it was
certainly the best statistics/data analysis course I have ever
taken. No improvements necessary.

Interesting and challenging.

Problem sets were excellent and instructive; I loved
learning to be more proficient at MATLAB; the lectures were well
organized, though often fast and very challenging conceptually

2008

Every paragraph below is an individual student's answer to the
question: "How would you describe the overall quality of the
lectures?".

knew what he was talking about, would help you with matlab programming

Frederik's lectures were very well presented. Subject
matter was presented from a variety of view points, and often left
trails for independent learning outside of the class.

Professor Simons is a great teacher. He taught everything
clearly. I learned a lot from him. Thank you Frederik.

Frederik is talented in teaching, and he can always
demonstrate in a comfortable way for the student to understand,
without going into some abstract concepts

Prof. Simons was also very nice and approachable.

This course was of top teaching quality. The subject
matter was very well presented and illustrated in the problem
sets.

One of the most great class I ever took!

Every paragraph below is an individual student's answer to the
question: "What advice would you give to another student
considering taking this course?".

This course is not just recommended for Geo students but for anyone
studying any science. The applications of the theory were engaging and
the material highly relevant. (...) I would say this class would be
suitable and important for anyone who is a sophomore or higher.

I strongly recommend you to take it!

It's a great course if you want to
learn to use MATLAB or some basics of inverse modeling. The workload
is very reasonable. Allows you to work on your own research as a final
project, which is nice.

2007

Every paragraph below is an individual student's answer to the
question: "Please comment on the strengths of the course".

It's strongest point was the rigurously applied nature of the
teaching style and the lab work. I've taken statistics and stuff
before, but there was never any context. The lectures, as is all but
required in a mathematical course, were dry and formulaic in
structure. They were not dry in delivery, though! Classes were still
fun. Furthermore, each spate of formulas fed into a quality, well
thought out lab exercise.

The assignments/labs were excellent. They were well designed to
illustrate the important concepts and show practically how to
implement them.

Covered a lot of materiel. Lab exercises were very helpful for
understanding. Very receptive to input about course.

The lab exercises were well designed and significantly contributed to
my understanding of the material. The MATLAB skills gained were invaluble.

The techniques from this course were useful in writing my JP. Also,
the professor was very flexible to tailoring the course to the
student's needs, although this worked against me somewhat in that the
course went in a more technical direction.